


Lyra (to charm even the stones)

by Ivaylo, skitzofreak



Series: constellations in your skin [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Rebellion, Scars, art included, first defiance, first scar, jyn week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14749328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/pseuds/Ivaylo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: Jyn runs.





	Lyra (to charm even the stones)

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> First of 4 parts, written for Day 5 of Jyn Week for the Jyn Appreciation Squad (prompt: "Scars / Rebellion"), in collaboration with [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/pseuds/Ivaylo), aka @crazy-fruit on tumblr, who drew the cover image. She also has a great deal of lovely art worth checking out [on her blog](http://crazy-fruit.tumblr.com/).

Jyn runs.

The mud sucks at her feet, the too-big boots catching and sticking in the soft surface like hands trying to trip her. The wind tears at her braids and rough clothing, pulling her back as the mud pulls her down. She keeps running anyway, wrenches her feet out of the mud and leans hard into the wind, tiny and terrified but determined. Mama said trust the Force. Mama said _run_.

So she runs.

The early spring rain is relentless on her face, in her eyes, dribbling down her collar and slipping across her chilled - but remarkably unblemished - skin. It isn’t important yet, but even as an adventurous eight year old, Jyn has only a handful of barely visible freckles and no scars at all. It has not even occurred to her to notice this.

Someday, someone will tell Jyn Erso that her body is like a sky, each scar a constellation on her skin. But right now, as she runs through the low green hills and sharp black rocks of Lah’mu, her mother’s crystal thumping against her chest, her father’s words whispering in her ears, right now, she is unmarked. She is young and scared and wet and cold and Mama cannot be dead, Papa cannot be kneeling in the freshly-planted field, her house cannot be burning (she is, he is, _it is_ ) but she still runs. She runs because Papa told her to run when they practiced, and Mama told her to trust the Force, and if she does that then maybe the house won’t be burning. Maybe Mama won’t be dead.

Jyn runs, and she is listening hard to the rasp of her breath and the wail of the wind and the echoing whine of a blaster cutting through Papa's scream. Jyn runs, and she is feeling the mud tear at her feet and the wind scour her skin and the crystal on her chest thumping, thump, thumping. Jyn runs, but she is not seeing the green hills and black rocks of her home (which can't be burning, it _can't)_ because her eyes are watery from the smoke and  –

Her ankle twists, her balance shift, she throws her small hands out and bites down on her bottom lip hard _because she can’t scream_ _that would be bad so bad the clumping boots are getting closer_ and then something rips across her knee and her hands and she collapses to the damp rocks.

Ouch.

_Ouch_.

Get up, _get up_ , clumping, thumping feet in the distance and Mama fell down but Jyn promised to trust the Force, so up she gets. Her palms both sting, her left knee aches, and something warm trickles down her leg along with the cold, cold rain but she doesn’t stop to look. The cave is just around this corner, easier to find at this time of year than the others because all the summer plants haven’t really grown in yet and the winter ice is all gone. Jyn runs to the cave and opens the special door Mama made (Mama said _trust the Force, Jyn,_ and that’s what she’s going to do, never mind mud or wind or smoking houses or pain in her knee). She climbs down, closes the hatch, finds the little lantern and turns it on, but not the big lantern, that’s too high up where Papa left it last time they practiced. She finds a spot on the floor where the rocky floor is a little higher than the rest because the rain is trickling down the hatch lining and making cold little puddles on the floor. It did this last year, too, and Mama had said she and Papa would seal it up better in the spring. It's spring, but guess they haven't done it yet.

Guess they won't.

_No, no, no, no. Trust the Force, Jyn._

Jyn settles on the dry bit of floor, her lungs still aching in her chest, her hands stinging, her knee aching. She breathes long and slow the way Mama told her, she counts her heartbeats until they slow like Papa said. She made it. She ran all the way just like they practiced. She ran like Mama told her. Now she holds her little lantern tight in her hands and breathes long and slow and…

And…

She waits.

Mama fell down in the field and didn’t get up, and Jyn’s stomach hurts when she thinks about it, so she doesn’t.

It’s cold.

It’s dark.

Papa was supposed to come after them. Mama was supposed to come with Jyn.

_Trust the Force, Jyn_.

Something moves overhead – or maybe she’s imagining it. Or it’s the wind?

She waits.

Her hands sting, and she rubs them idly on her grass-stained trousers…oh, her knee is bloody. It’s bloody. (Mama was bloody when - )

Mama always tells her not to pick at cuts. _Wash it with clean water. Put a bacta strip on it, one of the little ones. Ask Papa to kiss it better._  

Jyn picks at the bloody fabric on her knee. The hatch stays closed. It's cold. It's dark. She pushes her dirty fingers past the material and finds the torn edges of skin. Pick, pick, pick. 

The lantern flickers.

She waits.

She waits and she picks at her knee and she shakes the little lantern when it starts to fade and she cries a little when it dies (just a little, have to be a brave girl, _trust the Force, Jyn)_ and she waits and she waits and she waits.

She waits a long time.

By the time Saw finds her, her house is a burnt out pile of rubble in an empty field, her knee is an infected mess, and her eyes are long dry.

A part of her feels like it stays in the cave, even as Lah’mu drops away behind them, still sitting in the dark, picking nervously at her knee, waiting. The rest of her understands somehow that she has not yet stopped running, has never stopped. Her mother’s crystal is warm against her cold skin, her father’s words echo hollowly in her ears, and she is no longer unmarked. Someday someone will tell her that her body is a sky, a stretch of constellations, but for now the marks on her skin are only flesh and blood and infected tissue, and she is small and ugly. Saw gives her a water canteen, an energy bar, a heavy awkward hand on her shoulder, and a bacta patch for her knee.

It scars anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> The constellation [Lyra](http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/lyra-constellation/) is the golden harp of Orpheus, said to play so sweetly that it could charm even the stones.


End file.
